Malaysia wants to know why some maids’ passports not renewed

The Star Online, Thursday, September 10, 2009

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia will seek clarification from Indonesia over claims that its embassy here is refusing to renew passports of domestic maids if they were being paid less than RM600 per month.

Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said, over the last month, his ministry had received a number of such complaints.

"We are concerned because nothing on the matter has been agreed upon or even discussed between the Malaysian and Indonesian governments," he told reporters after meeting with about 900 temporary teachers working at Tamil vernacular schools in the country.

Subramaniam said he had discussed the matter with the Malaysian Foreign Ministry and had directed his ministry's secretary-general to find out what was Indonesia's stand on the matter, through the Malaysian ambassador and labour attache in Jakarta.

On calls by companies in the manufacturing sector to lift the freeze on foreign workers, Dr Subramaniam said his ministry had advised these firms to raise their salaries and make the jobs appealing to locals.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Datuk Anifah Aman said Indone-sian ambassador to Malay-sia Da'i Mochtar admitted that, while there were cases of passports not being renewed, there were also Indonesian workers who wanted to stay on despite being paid less than RM600.

The ambassador explained that it was an agreement between the employer and employee.

"There are no hard and fast rules on the salary," Anifah told The Star after meeting the Indo-nesian ambassador at his office in Wisma Putra yesterday.

"Some workers are not happy that they are not paid fairly, then their passports will not be renewed and they can leave the country."

Anifah also said the Indo-nesian envoy explained that the RM600 benchmark was not only for maids but for those in other sectors like manufacturing and construction.